How did you get involved in the OpenMaker project?
Following two meetings organised by Top-IX, WUD Company took into consideration the possibility to make the productive process more sustainable. The key parts of the system - the cubic wooden joints - can be made with recycled plastic, which allows to reduce production costs in the long term, increase production and make it accessible to all. The synergy of the project with local partners opened the way to different operative approaches. The SV#plastic prototype project became an operational plan in which each partner alternates in solving critical points and exploring the most effective solutions. The partnership facilitates the access to serial production equipment and allows the original artisanal idea to move away from ligneous material.
What are the main strengths of a maker-manufacturer partnership?
Sharing ideas is the most important goal of a partnership between artisans and designers, because when you share you choose to see the idea from another point of view, to match different skills and to make the idea sustainable … and turn it into reality!
Dream big! What would be the greatest achievement for your project?
We dream for every home to have a piece of Sistema Venezia, just like in any Italian house there is a “caffettiera”. We work to spread “Sistema Venezia” as a functional, easy and playful way to self-build furniture all around Europe … we surely need to travel more, learn better English, start to eat Kapustnica and dance Flamenco. The most important challenge is to mediate between the quality of the making and the sustainability of the manufacturing process.
What do you hope to get out of the OpenMaker?
We hope that OpenMaker will help Sistema Venezia to increase its potential from a productive point of view, thanks to the prototype of the cubes in recycled plastic; moreover, it will be useful to spread the dissemination of the project and perhaps get to know different ways of making.
As part of the maker movement, do you have any interesting fact to share?
We always tell ourselves that “art is a kind of imitation” and “no one can invent anything.” We have to watch, touch, get things and ideas from nature, from the past, from other people…. it’s a permanent school of life! Sistema Venezia (born in Venice) is inspired by an artist from Chile, that uses elegant and functional furniture (made with steel) to display her products.